


Double Helix

by tmelange



Series: Between an Arrow and a Target [3]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:37:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmelange/pseuds/tmelange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><img/></p><p>Oliver gets pulled into an escalating situation with two Zoners, and the consequences have a lasting effect on his relationship with Clark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story uses some of the circumstances and establishments of the **Smallville** season 6 episode _Fallout_ (6x06). I changed everything so completely that you wouldn't need to have seen the episode to understand this story, however, to the extent that some of the basic premise of the episode underlies this story, you might want to beware of spoilers. Basically, the story plays on the season 6 theme where phantoms from the Phantom Zone have managed to escape their imprisonment and are running loose on Earth. Some of these phantoms are able to take over human bodies, and all of them seem to be gunning for Clark, the last of the race who had jailed them.
> 
> This is an out-of-sequence installment in my C/Ollie continuity _Between an Arrow and a Target_ , though you don't really have to read the other stories in the series to understand this one.
> 
> I had originally thought I was going to present this story in 2 parts; that I was going to get to a certain point in this particular arc and then just end it, picking up the overall story in the next installment in the series. I changed my mind about that, figuring it would be better to reach a more definite ending, just in case I don't have time to get back to this series until next year. So instead of 2 parts, this story will have 10. Which jives well with my sense of symmetry, since a double helix makes a complete **turn** in just over 10 nucleotide pairs. ;)

_A double helix typically consists geometrically of two congruent helices with the same axis, differing by a translation along the axis, which may or may not be half-way. The double helix shape is very strong. DNA takes this shape over a straight shape naturally for two reasons: it must be 'double' so it can reproduce itself; and the helix, being intertwined, is stronger than two parallel chains because pulling it in any one direction won't break it apart._

–wikipedia.org

 **I.**

 _White._

Like the stark whiteness of ice covering everything for miles in every direction, only not cold. _Hot._ Like the heat of a volcano, only on the _inside._

"D-Don't—"

Bitter brightness, the sun and the white, sharp like the teeth he sinks into skin. Laughing at the shocked intake of breath.

 _"You are mine, Kal-El, son of my accursed jailer. Soon you will be ours."_

The faint echo. The door. The dimension. _Closer._

 _"We will be together again."_

An elbow pressed to the back of a head. A face in the snow. This is inevitable, yet and still, the last son of the House of El struggles.

 **"Stop… _Don't—!"_**

Red. Against the white, in flecks like teardrops, in a deep, expanding stain. Inside is a yellow sun, blazing, a landscape turned desolate at the invasion. He takes— _everything_ —and the feel of it is the memory of life, of another world, of the desolate years, disembodied, lost and alone.

 _Without._

His release shudders through him, into the body splayed. Open and, finally, quiescent. A ready and willing vessel—

A father's crystal against skin. _Burning,_ like a brand. The mark of the accursed House. Beneath the black cascade of hair, at the base of the neck.

 _Dark._ The sudden shadow that blocks the sun. The sound—the rush of wind that knocks him back and off the body he has just claimed.

Then the sun again. In the bright, white rays, Kal-El moves, and quicker than the eye can follow, he has gained the upper hand, grinning down. Smile twisted, sharp as a blade.

 _"My heart,"_ he whispers, breath curling up and away. _"My own."_

 _"How ironic, that **this** body should be so fine. I see you have made use of it."_ A laugh. How he has missed that laugh! Different, yes, but the same, always the same.

 _"Too fine perhaps? You have made me mighty, indeed. Should I show you how mighty I've become?"_ Hands, frantic, rough. _"Let me show you—"_

+

Oliver Queen woke with a desperate intake of breath that left him coughing and disoriented, and in pain, sudden and severe. Hands gripped him, pushing him back and down and into a soft bank of—

He started to struggle.

"Mr. Queen. Oliver—"

"Ollie, settle down—"

 _Lois._

Oliver opened his eyes and forced his breathing under control. _A technique he had learned on his last trip to Vietnam._ He took in the whole of his surroundings in one panicked sweep of his eyes around the room. _Breathe._ A hospital room.

"What—"

"Take it easy, golden boy." Lois had a hand to his chest, voice light and teasing, but he could see the deep concern in her eyes. She took his hand. He shivered.

Oliver looked down at their entwined fingers, beige flesh against the white of sheets, and tried to stifle a sense of unease.

"What—" He licked his lips, pulled his hand away. Mayla, his assistant, poured a glass of water and passed it over. He sipped, trying to find leverage to prop himself up on the bed. It seemed he had broken his arm; he had to wriggle to get himself in the right position, and the pain made him grimace. "What happened?"

"Good question," Lois said, settling in the chair by his bedside. "You were brought here last night by some anonymous Samaritan who no one seems to have seen, looking like you just went twelve rounds with Ali." She patted him on the arm, brushed fingertips over the shell of an ear to rearrange his hair. "You're definitely a lover, not a fighter, Ollie. Didn't anyone ever teach you how to duck and run?"

"I—" Oliver stopped. He looked from Lois to Mayla, realizing he didn't know what to say. There was no quip, no sharp repartee to engage in when he hadn't a clue what had happened to him or why he was in the hospital.

"I was dropped off here last night?" Had he been ambushed while patrolling as Green Arrow? Was his secret out? He glanced around the room again, looking for a set of clothes. He spotted what he must have been wearing, draped over an armchair by the door to the bathroom. Jeans and a blue polo shirt. He let the relief pass through him, but it did little to relieve his overall feeling of dread. At least his secret was apparently safe.

"You don't remember?"

Oliver shook his head, then regretted it as a sharp pain lanced through his temple. He reached up and felt the bandage.

"No. I must have been mugged or something. What's the prognosis?"

Lois rattled off his maladies like they were badges of honor. "A very bruised face, broken arm, concussion, two broken ribs, sprained ankle, and apparent memory loss." She smiled in that impudent way of hers that had always made Oliver want to kiss her—yet now it left him…cold. There was something—

The doctor entered the room, shooing his visitors out so he could be checked over.

"I'm glad you're okay," Lois said as she got up from the chair and leaned over him for a kiss before leaving. The progress of her smiling face towards his own seemed to happen in non-time, in tripped up slow motion, distorted and surreal.

At the last second, he turned his head and her lips met his cheek, down by the line of his jaw.

+

Energy slammed into him. The way it made him feel—he was strong. _So strong!_

 **"Ollie! You have to fight it!"**

He ran at Kal-El. _"No one here by that name, Kryptonian,"_ he taunted as his fist connected with a perfect face, sending his enemy flying into the side of a building.

Kal-El was strong, _worthy,_ beautiful in his power, magnificent in his fury as he rose from the debris. It would be a pleasure to break him, shred his mind, breach his body. _It had been so long._

"I'm sorry, Ollie," he heard the Kryptonian say as he accelerated towards him at speed. "I wish there was another way—"

He laughed at that, loud, with a derisive edge. _"Pathetic son of an accursed father. You don't have the **power."**_

Much had apparently been gifted to his enemy under this yellow sun, but strength, speed, were _nothing_ against the clenched power of a superior mind. He took the information he needed from Kal-El, ripped it from him as the Kryptonian fell to one knee, screaming.

He could see it—Jor-El had established a piece of Krypton on Earth, for his son to know his home. _A fortress of ice._ The minister had always been so proud, so insufferably arrogant.

Justice would be served in the shadow of the legacy his jailer tried so hard to preserve.

And then. _And then._

He gathered Kal-El to him, shivering, trapped in his own mind but still struggling. Blurred like the wind across the vast distance. Stopped in the long, crystalline shadow cast against the ice. Despite himself, he was impressed.

 _So like Krypton._

 _"Fight me, Kal-El,"_ he yelled, as he dropped his enemy to the ground and released his mind. _"It pleases me to have you struggle…"_

+

There was a light shining across half of his face as his eyes startled open, pulling him from a dream that slipped and skidded and avoided his attempts to remember it like water through fingers spread wide. He was sweating, though, and his heart was racing double time.

Oliver glanced at the clock on the table by his head. It was later in the morning than he would have expected. Carefully, he levered himself up and out of bed. He'd had enough of this invalid crap. He was checking out of the hospital today, no matter what the doctor said. He needed to get himself ready to go.

When his bag was packed and sitting on the chair, and he was cleaned up and dressed and just about to call for the nurse so he could make his intentions known, he was surprised by a visitor.

He smiled. "Senator Kent."

"It's Martha, Oliver, you know that."

She was dressed in a stylish brown suit, and her red hair was swept back in a chignon. In her hands was a bouquet of sunflowers, undoubtedly from her garden at the farm. She placed the flowers on the bed, and then walked to him, holding him by the arms and studying his face with the type of concern reserved for moms. She kissed him carefully on the cheek.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you. I would have come sooner but I was in Topeka for the budget hearings, and this was the soonest I could get back."

Oliver chuckled. "Bad things sometimes happen. I'm just glad a concerned citizen was willing to help me out, get me to the hospital." He glanced at Mrs. Kent sidelong. "I'd hate to think what would have happened to me if I would have been left bleeding on the side of the road somewhere."

Martha moved towards the window. "Are you checking yourself out? So soon? Has Lois been by?"

"Yes, yes and yes. Your beautiful chief of staff was here yesterday, and, actually, I expect her any minute." He winked. "I want to make good my escape before she arrives."

"Maybe you should—"

"Not a chance." Oliver hefted his overnight bag in his good hand, being careful of his ribs, and motioned for Mrs. Kent to join him. "Would you mind?"

"Of course not."

Mrs. Kent took his arm and, together, they made their way out of the room. In the hallway, they were accosted by a nurse who insisted he settle in a wheelchair for his trip out of the hospital if he wouldn't change his mind about checking out. Through it all, Martha Kent calmly navigated the system, providing support and a quirky sense of humor as Oliver signed on the dotted line and picked up his meds. He kept looking up at her, studying her profile over the twenty minutes it took for them to complete the process. There was something he was dying to ask her, but he didn't want to seem too—what? Eager? Suspicious? Why was he worried? What did he have to be nervous about? It was just a stupid _question._

"I haven't seen Clark," Oliver said with studied casualness, releasing the statement into the sterile air for the person walking behind him to consider without the benefit of seeing the hot flush that stole over his face as he formed the words.

There was a pause, slight and perhaps unnoticeable to most people, but Oliver was very observant, and he was sure the incremental increase in tension between himself and his visitor was real, and not imagined.

"Clark's at home, working on the farm. It's been busy for him. I'm sure he'll be by to check on you as soon as he can."

"Right." Oliver nodded. He didn't bother to say it: that with Clark's super speed and super powers he could hardly be too busy for a visit. If they were friends, Clark would have made the time. _If they were friends._

He wasn't even sure if Martha was aware that he was one of the few people who knew Clark's secret. He wondered if it would matter. _If I told you your son trusted me would you tell me where he is? Why he isn't here?_

Oliver couldn't shake the certainty that it had been Clark who had saved him, who had left him at the hospital for treatment. It was the type of thing the farm boy would do, anonymously, to protect his secret. That was what made Clark's absence so conspicuous.

It was the reason why everything felt so… _wrong_ …from the moment he had woken up in the hospital—he was sure of it: _Clark should have been there when he first opened his eyes._

"Could you tell him that I need to see him?" he said as Mrs. Kent pushed the wheelchair through the automatic doors and out into the bright sunshine. Oliver rose to his feet with a tight grip on his bag. He needed to get back to the penthouse, to his computer, and his surveillance equipment so he could piece together what had happened to him. This _not knowing_ was unacceptable.

He smiled as Mrs. Kent passed the flowers she had brought with her to a taxi driver, kissing her on the cheek. "I need to talk to him," he said again. "It's important."

Martha Kent nodded, but there was a slight rigidity in the way she was holding herself now. Now she looked worried.

+

Martha drove the red pick-up truck to the top of the driveway and parked. It was good to be home, though the farm was so much _less_ without her husband's presence and his passion for the work and the legacy of the Kent family. Clark did the best he could to keep things running the way his father would have wanted, but her son had so many responsibilities, and not just to the farm and to the memory of his dad. A time would surely come when Clark would have to put the farm behind him. Perhaps…perhaps he should have put his life on the farm behind him months, years, ago. Perhaps, they had all waited too long, fought against the inevitable, made a wrong decision without understanding the facts and the repercussions. Look what had happened…

Clark was special. For his own safety, he needed to better understand his powers and his heritage. Martha was never more certain that her son needed the training his biological father had insisted upon, the very thing that had cost Jonathan his life to avoid.

She hopped out of the cab and slammed the door shut, looking around. It was late afternoon. The farm was quiet, and knowing Clark, he had finished his work and was in town running errands before the stores closed for the evening. She was getting ready to unload the groceries when a gust of wind told her she was wrong in her assumptions. Blinking, she shook her head at the bed of the truck, miraculously emptied of groceries, and smiled over at her son who was grinning at her from the doorway.

"Hi, mom."

"You didn't have to do that, Clark," she admonished as she ascended the stairs. "I'm perfectly capable of bringing in the bags."

"I know." He kissed her cheek. "I just thought I'd help. I'm glad you're home."

They made small talk as she put the groceries away. Clark devoured an apple and seemed…not so different from the person he had been a week ago, two weeks ago, before everything had changed for him. Of course there were no marks, no injuries, no lingering bruises, just a tension, the clouds in eyes usually as clear as a high sky. He wasn't still injured in the way Oliver Queen was injured, broken bones or cracked ribs, but he was hurting. It was so obvious to her that Clark was still suffering.

"I went to the hospital to see Oliver." She moved from the kitchen counter towards the living room, gazing at her son who had frozen by the fireplace like a deer in headlights. "He was asking for you." Clark turned, picking up a family photograph from the mantle and studying it with his head bowed so she couldn't see his face.

"You can't avoid him forever, Clark."

+

The familiarity of his penthouse in Metropolis was more comfortable than any hospital, and not only that, having access to his files and surveillance footage, something he could use to work out the mystery of his condition, was a welcome balm to his sense of disquiet.

Retracing the course of his original research was easy. The active file on his laptop contained the details of a rash of vicious crimes that spanned three states. A murderer on a two-week killing spree, who had left a trail of victims leading to the outskirts of Metropolis. The video footage from inside the apartment showed him receiving a phone call and going out as Green Arrow. It was too bad that his cell phone was missing, along with his wallet and identification. He made a note to have his assistant pull his phone records. He wanted to know who he had been talking to.

He switched his computer screen to the satellite footage for the night in question. He had long ago tasked a special Queen Industries satellite to track his movements whenever he was in any city for an extended period of time, or for any mission he could plan in advance. The footage of his nightly operations was always invaluable for study after the fact, allowing him to improve his methods, and sometimes, like now, providing key bits of missing information that would enable him to piece together the specifics of a situation gone wrong.

The feed picked up at an industrial park by the river outside of Metropolis, with him confronting some sort of over-bulked reject from the WWF, crouched over his latest victim. There was no sound captured from this type of feed, but, obviously, he had arrived at the scene too late. The victim was dead, brutalized, sexually assaulted, with his chest blasted out and splattered on the pavement like someone had exploded a grenade in there. Oliver watched himself in his Green Arrow gear preparing to attack, arrows notched, confident that this would be the killer's last victim.

The first arrow, releasing a cloud of nerve gas, got the killer's attention.

Oliver watched as it all went south from there.

The killer had…powers. Super speed, as his bow was knocked out of his hands and he went flying into the side of a dumpster. Incredible strength, as he was snatched up, shaken and thrown again. Oliver could see the thin line of his lips pressed together on the screen. He was clearly in over his head. It looked like it was going to be his last night on Earth.

"Why don't I remember any of this?"

Then Clark Kent was there, like a guardian angel, placing himself between the Green Arrow on the screen and the super powered menace attempting to dismember him limb by limb. Oliver would have given his entire fortune to be able to hear what the two were saying to each other. They were talking, taunting, and the entire time Clark was leading the killer away from his crumpled body. Oliver watched himself struggle to get to his feet, but it was clearly beyond him at that point.

The battle, when it began, was like a clash of titans. Clark seemed to get the upper hand fairly quickly, knocking the killer into a tanker that exploded upon impact. No one could have survived that explosion, and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief as the Clark on the screen watched the fire flare and settle, devouring the truck but having nothing else around it to feed its fury.

Oliver sat back on the sofa. So that was it. The answers to his questions. He was injured during a fight with a metahuman of some sort who was way more than he had seemed on paper. Clark must have taken him to the hospital…

The picture on the screen changed as he watched Clark walk towards his body. His mouth fell open in shock as he saw himself lift his head and say something to Clark that had the farm boy reeling back in alarm. _And then he got up off the ground like he had never been injured and attacked his friend._ He watched himself slam into Clark like he had some sort of power to battle the guy who had abilities beyond belief. The guy who had just saved his life.

He watched himself knock his friend into a building, Impossibly. _That couldn't have been me._ Sat there, eyes riveted on the screen, as Clark emerged from the rubble but immediately fell to one knee, screaming silently. Frozen, he watched as he and Clark simply _disappeared,_ from Metropolis, from the range of his surveillance, from the realm of rational explanation.

Oliver closed his laptop, his one good hand on his face. Oh, God, where had they gone? What had happened next? _Why didn't he remember **any** of this?_

+

Weeks later, Oliver was no closer to understanding what had happened after he and Clark had disappeared from Metropolis that night, and, frankly, he was tired of trying to figure it out. Three trips to Smallville, numerous phone messages, pleas made through various acquaintances—with no luck. Clark was the only person who knew what had happened that night, and he was clearly avoiding him.

Oliver supposed it wounded his pride, and this feeling, this sinking feeling that kept him on edge…

 _…like there was something missing, something just out of reach, hiding in the corner, hanging over his head…_

…was just his pent up frustration at being injured, unable to patrol at night as the Green Arrow. At having to put most of his plans on hold while he rehabbed his arm—

"You're doing great, Mr. Queen," his physical therapist said as he moved away from Oliver, releasing his arm and throwing him a towel. "You're almost as good as new." The man started packing his things as Lois entered from the bedroom in a suit and wearing one shoe. "Same time tomorrow?"

Oliver nodded. His trainer greeted Lois and then retreated into the elevator and out of penthouse.

"Got time for breakfast, sleepyhead?"

"Can't. I'm handling Mrs. Kent's visit to an elementary school downtown. I have to beat the pavement."

Lois dashed around the apartment, looking for her other shoe, her keys.

"How is Martha?" Oliver asked as he shrugged into his t-shirt.

"Good. She has the senator thing under control." Lois stopped her mad dash and grinned. "Everybody loves her."

Oliver tried to sound just as casual. "And Clark? I haven't seen him around lately. What's he been up to?"

"Smallville? Doing the same old thing, I guess. Where there's a cow to milk or some hay to bale, Clark's right on it."

Oliver nodded. "It's just—I've been trying to reach him."

Lois stopped. Looked at him curiously. "For what?"

"I wanted to ask him something." He shrugged, looking away from her sharp gaze. "Hey, forget about it. He's probably just busy. I'm sure I'll catch up to him sooner or later."

Lois frowned. "Okay. I gotta go. Call me later?"

Oliver's mind was already on other things, not the least of which was the fact that he was glad she was leaving, and he'd really rather not call her later. If he didn't stop feeling so frustrated, so dissatisfied with everything currently in his life, he would have to let Lois go. It was unfair to keep leading her on, but he was hoping that the return to his normal routine would mark a return to his ordinary perspective; that, as his arm healed, the things that had made him happy prior to his accident would somehow once again make him happy. "Sure," he agreed slowly, but Lois was already in the elevator and gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

How quickly it came and went, the panic, the pain. Then the world slipped backwards into shadow, and everything, _everything,_ took on a new shape— _distorted, in the shards of a mirror, broken._ He was there again. **_No!_** He didn't want— _oh God. **God.**_ _He…wanted this!_ His body—it moved outside of his control, and even his own responses he could not recognize.

He cried out, loud against the barren landscape, but what should have sounded of pain echoed only in pleasure. His adversary _(lover)_ laughed, lips against the skin at the nape of his neck. Fighting. Shouldn't he have been fighting? Not turning his head, not catching those lips with his own.

A secret desire.

_Oliver._

Somewhere in a corner of his mind, in the shadows where his volition was trapped, he knew he had dreamed of this _(a nightmare...a…dream),_ fantasized, once, in his bed in a room, in a familiar yellow farmhouse, underneath a white sheet _(white like the snow, the ice against his face),_ hand down the front of his boxers—

_Oliver._

Brown eyes. A perfect face. Arrogance that could make him angry, make him laugh. _Brave._ Beautiful. If only—

_You want this one, Kal-El?_

Whispers. Black echoes. Stilted and sharp, cutting through his mind. _Here is the pain._ He welcome it. He shuddered in the grip of it.

_How ironic. How fortunate for you to have this measure of solace, Kryptonian. Let it nourish you in your captivity. Never let it be said that **we** were without mercy, that **we** were as vicious or as cruel as your own accursed father, our jailer, whom **we** have survived. Take what you can of joy, Kal-El, for it must last you an eternity…_

Clark Kent blinked, and opened his eyes, and found he was in Oliver's apartment in the watchtower, in the bedroom, kneeling by the bed. The room was darkly illuminated by moonlight that streamed in through the skylights overhead. Oliver Queen was asleep in his bed.

_Ollie was asleep in the bed._

So close, he could reach out a hand and touch his face.

Clark shivered, and took a quick, deep breath. Reality returned with a panicked sense of startlement— _God, how had he gotten here? What was he **doing** here?_ —that had him losing his balance in his rush to get away, falling backwards, into the nightstand by the bed, knocking over the alarm clock and the lamp in a cacophony of jumbled sound. Too slow in his confusion to catch either item, but fast enough to super speed away as Oliver jolted awake with a yell.

He stopped in a cornfield, in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Metropolis and Smallville. The stalks stretched up, past his head, hiding him from the moon and the night sky, the sense of dread pressing down on his shoulders. He was panting, breathing hard—not out of breath, of course, but unable to _breathe._ Like some sort of addict, he was sweating and disoriented, _and all he wanted to do was go back._ Back to the apartment in the tower in Metropolis. Back to the person he could feel and hear and smell and taste, even at this great distance. Each prickle of sensation along his skin was like an imprint, the memory of all the things he had done, had _felt,_ rising wetly to the surface.

Calling him back.

_"What's wrong with me?"_

Clark doubled over. Gasping, he used every trick he had ever learned to pull himself in, to regain his sense of self, to quiet his super senses. He was out of control—completely, dangerously. He was out of control and scared. _Scared to death of the things he wanted to **do.**_

+

"There's something definitely wrong. You might as well tell me, Clark. You know I'll find out anyway. You're pretty bad at keeping secrets of the non-alien variety."

Clark buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Chloe's voice was pitched low, and she was standing close enough to him in the crowd of people to ensure they weren't overheard. Still, the topic made him uncomfortable, nervous. He had no intention of discussing anything with Chloe—not now, not ever. "There's nothing wrong—"

"Don't give me that. You hardly cracked a smile, and that was the funniest movie—"

Clark cut her off, letting some of his frustration color his tone. "Do you want me to make something up?"

"Hey, you guys ready?"

"Yeah," Clark responded quickly. Lois was drying her hands with an over-abundance of paper towels from the bathroom. She bunched them up and threw them at Clark's forehead. Clark batted the ball of paper away and frowned, but even though Lois was annoying, he had never been so relieved to see her in his life. He'd tolerate just about anything to avoid Chloe's interrogation.

"Let's shake a leg, then," Lois said, and with her usual aggressiveness, started elbowing her way through the crowd in the lobby. "I want to try Ollie before we head back to Smallville."

The night air was crisp and wet, typical fall weather in Kansas. Clark stood at the curb in front of the movie theater with Chloe as they waited for Lois to make her phone call, trying not to conspicuously vibrate with agitation. Chloe was watching him sidelong, with her reporter's instincts and her firsthand knowledge of the reality of his life, and if he wasn't careful, he'd have her convinced there was something going on that she needed to _know._

The _last_ thing he wanted right now was Chloe on his case.

He had kept a low profile for weeks. Time and distance would fix everything—he was sure. Enough time and plenty of distance. So why had he let his mom convince him to meet up with Chloe and Lois— _especially Lois_ —for a movie premiere in Metropolis when he would rather have stayed away from his friends, away from this city and the temptation to…

Lois was trying to reach Oliver. She was pressing buttons on her cell phone. It was Oliver's voice on the recording. _This is Oliver Queen. I'm unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you._ Clark couldn't help but listen.

_Ollie, where **are** you? This is Lois, calling like I said I would, and this is you being M.I.A. **Again.** Why doesn't that surprise me? We're heading back to Smallville, and you just missed out on…well, you missed out. I guess I'll catch up to you later._

"Clark… _Clark_ —are you listening to me?"

Not at the penthouse… _where?_ Clark's heart started to race, his hearing expanded in exponential increments— _and he couldn't stop it._

"Clark…?"

_Halloween's over, punk ass **bitch.** … Oh, you got nothing funny to say now? Guess you're not so fucking **slick** with a gun pointed at your head, are you?_

_Oliver._ Clark stumbled back, away from the hand on his arm and the worried frown on his friend's face.

"I've got to go—"

"Wait, Clark—what's wrong?"

"What's up with Smallville?" he could hear Lois ask as he shook off Chloe and rushed across the street, out of the milling crowd and into the shadows where he could shift to super speed.

+

 _This was **so** not the plan,_ Oliver groaned to himself as he was kicked again. He tried to get up, regain the advantage, but the barrel of a gun was quickly pressed to his temple. He ignored the taunting, the standard street hustler posturing as his eyes swept the area, looking for inspiration in the poor light, within the midnight shadows that roamed. He was **not** going to die like this, like some stray dog in a back alley. He cared not one iota that it was his own fault for rushing his recovery. He was man enough to admit he'd made a miscalculation; that, apparently, his doctor had been right about the bone fracture in his arm. Being wrong this one time didn't mean he had to accept such an ignominious fate.

He was Oliver _fucking_ Queen. The Green Arrow.

 _Again with the kicking!_ Oliver swore as soon as he got out of this he would make sure these guys shared a cell with the meanest sons-of-bitches in Leavenworth.

If he got out of this.

Clearly, he was running out of time. The thug had had enough of fun at his expense and the gun was about to go off. He could see the hand wrapped around the handle tighten—

Then chaos erupted, and Clark was there, like an unstoppable force of nature in jeans, a cheap red jacket and a pathetically unstylish blue t-shirt. In two blinks, three, all six drug dealers were out cold, scattered on the ground amidst upended garbage cans and strewn trash. Super speed sure was a heck of an advantage. Oliver sighed as he gingerly tried to get to his feet, hand to the ribs on his right side.

"Perfect timing as always, Clark." Oliver hobbled over to his crossbow laying on the ground ten feet away where it had been kicked during the scuffle, feeling much better now that he had a weapon in his hands again but still mumbling under his breath about the doctor and the right cell for a bunch of degenerate assholes. _Now if he could only find his glasses—_

Oliver looked behind him as soon as he realized that Clark hadn't moved.

"What?"

_"What's wrong with you?"_

Oliver blinked. "What?"

Clark stalked in his direction. "Are you _trying_ to get yourself killed?"

"I assume that's a rhetorical question?" Oliver holstered his crossbow and grinned.

"I'm not joking."

He got the angry stance, as opposed to the self-righteous stance or the judgmental stance—Oliver was learning to distinguish between each. Hands clenched at sides, head tilted just so…

Oliver pulled out his datapad, already typing the standard anonymous text message to have the police pick up certain gift-wrapped criminals. "Listen Clark," he said, glancing up, "thank you, _again,_ for saving my ass, but I'm really not interested in—"

"Using your common sense? You're not bulletproof, Ollie—"

"And you're not my keeper—"

A step forward. "You need one—"

"Perhaps." Oliver shrugged. "Not you, though." He brushed past Clark and walked to the brown van that was parked at the side of the alley, back doors ajar and attesting to the interruption of a business deal. "You're great to have around in an emergency, Clark, but I prefer the people I rely on to return my phone calls occasionally." He retrieved the two duffle bags involved in the aborted exchange, opening one and finding enough crack cocaine to keep his unconscious _friends_ in prison attire for a good twenty years, and opening the other and finding enough money to bankroll the government of a small country. He zipped up the bag with the money, threw the bag with the drugs on the street by the collection of felons, and glanced again at Clark, who was still fuming and, in fact, looked suspiciously like he wanted to hit someone.

"What are you doing?"

"What?"

"With the bag, Ollie, the money—"

Oliver stopped in front of Clark, cocking an eyebrow. The alley was deserted, but the police would arrive at any minute. They didn't have time for an extended philosophical discussion. "I'm taking the money."

"No, you're not. That money is evidence—"

"The cocaine is the evidence. The money is a resource that needs to go back into the community, to be put towards a good cause."

Clark scowled. He seemed unusually tense, wound up and angry. His hands were still clench at his sides, and his eyes looked especially odd. Oliver had never noticed the way Clark's eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight. Another interesting observation to add to his file on Clark Kent. Right now, though, the farmboy was getting on his nerves.

"You're not the police, Ollie. There's a mechanism for the handling of this sort of thing through legitimate channels—"

"What—letting the money sit in a locked evidence room for years while this case goes to trial, or having it stolen by crooked cops, or ending up confiscated by the government to be used to support an unfettered bureaucracy, rather than having it go back to the people it was taken from in the first place? That's your idea of a legitimate channel? I think you need to get out more, Clark. There's a whole world out there, and things are rarely so black and white—"

Oliver felt the wind hit him, sweeping him up. Not hurtfully, but abruptly. It was his injuries that made him inhale sharply, made the lights dance in front of his eyes. He realized he had reflexively dropped the bag with the money, and that pissed him off. Plus, Clark had him pinned against the brick wall and was glaring at him like he had just announced he was about to commit murder.

"Clark—"

"The rules apply to everyone—"

"Rules were made to be broken, Boy Scout." Oliver tried to push Clark back and away, but the farmboy was stronger than he appeared, _of course._ He was about as moveable as an ox. Oliver groaned. Besides, he was too hurt to fight.

"You're not invulnerable. You can get hurt. One day I'm not going to be here to save your ass—"

In the distance, Oliver heard sirens.

_"Clark, we have to go—"_

Three heartbeats.

Later, when Oliver replayed the scene in his head, he decided that was how long Clark stood there, holding him to the wall and staring at him with such a level of intensity—

Then Clark disappeared, and that was when Oliver felt able to breathe. That was when he took a moment to catalogue his own body's reactions before making himself scarce. He was sweating; his heart was racing and he was as hard as a rock. So hard, it made walking, _not to mention running,_ difficult.

What was _that_ about?

He went to bed that night wondering.

+

Again, Oliver dreamed of his fight with Clark, the one he had witnessed on a video screen but still didn't remember. In a soundless place of clouds, he watched himself do amazing things, extraordinary things, to Clark, _with_ Clark, and it was like watching a stranger. Until it no longer seemed strange, and in that hazy in-between place where incredible things were possible, Oliver felt what it must feel like to take what he wanted from Clark, to make him do…anything he might want him to do. To have the power to hold him, to keep him near…

In the morning, he woke with his heart racing and the sheets tangled, with only a vague recollection of his nighttime fantasies: that he had dreamed of Clark in the clouds, and that he wanted. There was something he so desperately _wanted._

By the time he was dressed and ready for the day, he had it all figured out, analyzed and compartmentalized: his dreams—what little he remembered of them, the disturbing flashes that made him stop at odd moments and catch his breath—were some sort of post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by yet another close brush with death; a representation of his ego and his envy, and his desire to have what Clark has.

Simply ego. Simply envy. It was nothing… _more._

+

He certainly hadn't expected Clark Kent to make an appearance at this fundraiser, even though his mom, the Senator, was the keynote speaker. Oliver swapped out his empty champagne flute as the waiter passed by, occasionally interjecting a comment into the conversation between two of his college buddies just so neither of them would notice his distraction.

No, he hadn't _expected_ Clark to make an appearance, but he had to admit he had hoped.

Clark was being frustratingly elusive. Oliver didn't think it unreasonable to want to talk face-to-face with the guy who had saved his life less than a week ago. Perhaps to thank him again, to finish their conversation about the drug money Oliver had confiscated and donated to a group home for teens in foster care. They had unfinished business. Oliver had _questions._ He was just about to start taking this whole avoidance thing personally.

Brandon placed a hand on his shoulder, wanting his attention. Usually, he would have brought Lois to a function like this, but they hadn't been getting along so well lately, and it seemed the wisest choice to make this something of a guy's night out. Brandon was in town on business, and Jon was on the board of the host charity, so it was easy for them to make the rounds together, catching up and reminiscing about their college days and more recent escapades. Certainly, Oliver was having fun. As he laughed at Jon's reenactment of an engineer's speech at his company's annual shareholders meeting, he could almost dismiss the sense of expectation, disappointment—

Senator Kent was making her way to the front of the hall. The assemblage started moving _en masse_ towards their seats. The Queen Industries table was in the front, with an unobstructed view of the podium, and it was just as he was being seated with Jon to his right and Brandon on his left that he caught sight of Clark and Chloe, newly arrived and being hustled to the Senator's table. Throughout the opening comments and the commencement of the program, Oliver watched the two like a hawk, waiting impatiently for a chance to catch Clark's eye.

He waited in vain.

If it was possible to completely ignore someone who was staring daggers from twenty feet away, then Clark did so admirably. It was as if the farmboy didn't even realize Oliver was in the room—which was, frankly, impossible. He wasn't one to be overly impressed with his own good looks but even a clueless person would make a casual inspection of the guests in the hall, and Oliver was quite certain he'd be hard to miss in any crowd.

The program dragged on interminably, but the minute it was over, Oliver was out of his seat and paying his regards to Mrs. Kent. Clark and Chloe were standing by their table, waiting for the Senator to finish with her obligatory schmoozing. He made his way over, determined to make Clark acknowledge him, whether he wanted to or not. He had no idea what was bothering Clark, but he damn sure knew he hadn't done anything to him to warrant the Lex Luthor treatment.

"Ms. Sullivan. Clark."

"Hey, Ollie," Chloe said, kissing him on the cheek. "Didn't expect you to be here. Is Lois here too?"

"Nope. Flying solo tonight," he replied to Chloe, but he only had eyes for her companion. This was the first time he had encountered Clark in anything other than farm wear, and, he had to admit, Clark did clean up well. Extremely… _well._ He was wearing a designer tuxedo, and Oliver suspected Lex's influence had been brought to bear on the selection at some point. No one who dressed like Clark on a week-to-week basis would have an eye for men's _haute couture._ The thought of Lex and Clark and the implications of them discussing wardrobe made him vaguely uncomfortable.

"Didn't expect to see you here, Clark, but I'm glad I caught up to you. I've been trying to reach you—"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Ollie—"

Funny thing, he didn't seem sorry at all. In fact, his expression was carefully blank and his eyes were focused somewhere over Oliver's right shoulder.

"—I've been real busy with the farm. I was going to call first chance I got."

"Right."

"So how did you convince Lois to parole you for the evening?" Chloe interjected, looking between himself and Clark, clearly trying to identify the source of the rising tension.

"I wanted to spend a bit of quality time with some friends from college, and we were all scheduled to attend this event." He shrugged. "Lois would be bored with the testosterone levels and I figured it would be best to spare her." Oliver pointed. "That's Jon and that's Brandon."

"Whoa." Chloe waved.

"I'll make sure to tell them you're impressed."

"You better not. Not unless you want me to tell Lois you have two male friends who are prettier than she is."

Oliver threw up his hands in defeat. "My lips are sealed."

"Excuse me. I'll be back."

And just like that, Clark disappeared into the crowd.

Twenty minutes later, Oliver had rejoined his friends making the rounds of the guests. He had an eye on Clark across the room and one ear tuned to the conversation going on around him. He was pretty sure he wasn't being suitable company, but both Brandon and Jon had had quite a bit to drink and were completely mollified by a companionable arm thrown around the shoulders, a loud laugh now and again. If Oliver's attention was on the darkening looks being thrown his way intermittently from across the room, his friends didn't notice or take offense.

This was getting ridiculous. There was no reason for Clark to be treating him so badly. He hadn't _done_ anything. Before too long, he was going to need Clark's help to implement his plans to destroy Lex's secret research facilities. He needed Clark to trust him, to believe in his cause.

_He needed…Clark's friendship._

Clark leaned close to his mom's ear, said something, and spoke to Chloe. Then he started making his way towards the coatroom and the back exit.

Oliver didn't take a moment to think about it before he followed.

He caught up to Clark in the hallway by the bathrooms. "Hey, Clark," he called out, coming up behind him at a jog. _"Clark."_ Oliver reached out and grabbed Clark's arm to stop him.

Clark spun on him. "Don't touch me," he said in a low voice, before he turned and continued towards the door.

Oliver stared blankly after Clark for a moment. Then a rush of anger and indignation swept away his bewilderment. Without thinking, he was behind Clark again, spinning him around with a hand to the shoulder. A rush of wind like a baseball bat to the stomach, to the head, slammed into him, and he found himself pinned to the wall in the alley outside of the building, gasping in shadows that seeped and swirled and hid half of Clark's face.

"I said, _don't touch me."_

"What the _hell_ is with you, Clark?"

"Just leave me alone."

The arm across his chest, the hand that had his wrist pinned to the rough brick of the wall. The knee against his right thigh, easily keeping him from gaining any leverage. _Don't touch me,_ Clark had said, and yet they were so close he could feel Clark's breath against his cheek.

Oliver wanted to demand an explanation for Clark's bizarre behavior. He wanted to know where all this anger and aggression was coming from, what was this **_thing_** between them now that had no cognizable history and seemed completely unwarranted. But most of all, _most of all,_ he wanted—trembling, sweating, he _wanted._

The strength to reverse their positions. To slam Clark into the wall and hold him there. To—

He blinked, dragged in a breath.

"Shit. What the _fuck—?"_

Unceremoniously, he was released. Clark turned his back, stuck his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants as Oliver bent over double, trying to regain his equilibrium. It was the sight of Clark starting to make his way down the alley—away from the building—that got his legs back under him.

 _"Clark—"_ Again, he had a hand on Clark's arm, turning him, wanting to shake him with frustration.

Eyes blazed red. Startled, Oliver took a step backwards.

_"Don't you know when to stop?"_

Stubborn. His whole life—Oliver was nothing if not stubborn. Something was wrong, very wrong, and he wanted to know what it was. "We need to talk," he said, folding his arms across his chest and making it a demand, ignoring the fact that he didn't have the ability to demand anything at all from Clark.

_Clark was outside of his control._

The thought sent a shiver up his spine, made his skin clammy with another onset of sweating.

"Go inside, Ollie," Clark said, turning away. "I'm sure your _friends_ are looking for you by now."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't—" A pause. "I don't know."

"Clark—"

A movement of inky air, and Oliver was alone in the alley.


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

It was close to midnight by the time he got back to the penthouse. His friends had insisted they follow the fundraiser with a few drinks in the bar of the hotel where Brandon was staying. Oliver couldn't rightly blow them off, not when it had been his idea to get together in the first place. It wasn't their fault that he was crazy out of his mind with frustration, and dying for the opportunity to smash in the face of a certain Smallville resident.

Oliver exited the elevator and stood in the darkness of his apartment, just stood there, poised on the balls of his feet, eyeing the stairs that led up to the bedroom, the doors to the balcony that looked out over Metropolis, the faintly glowing clock face that hid the entranceway to his equipment storage area. His laptop was on the desk, and he supposed he could exhaust his frustration by working out a bit, maybe reviewing his file on Clark again, then meditating before going to bed. He still wasn't fit to go out on patrol—not without an unacceptable level of risk, and he assumed Clark wouldn't be around to lend a hand this time.

 _Clark._

What he really wanted to do was talk to the guy. Six weeks was a long time to go without answers.

Sure it was late, too late to be knocking on someone's door for anything less than an emergency. It would be later still by the time he traveled the ninety miles to Smallville, about a two hour trip for a normal person in ordinary traffic. Lucky for him it was the middle of the night and he wouldn't need to worry about traffic; lucky for him he had a motorcycle that could easily do 120 mph without kicking it out of third gear.

Yes, he was a little drunk, but the plan wasn't as outrageous as it seemed. He had overheard Martha tell Chloe that she'd be staying overnight in Metropolis. The Senator had an early meeting and it would be easier for her without the commute. That meant the only person he would be disturbing with a middle-of-the-night visit was Clark, and Oliver was of the opinion that the time had come to corner a certain farmboy.

Deciding on a course of action was like releasing an arrow from a bow. Tension thrummed through him, discharging into a frenzy of action as he quickly changed into casual clothing and took the elevator down to the garage. The road through the Kansas countryside was pitch black and deserted, and Oliver reached the outskirts of Smallville in record time—forty-five minutes flat doing 150 mph.

 _It felt like the trip took an eternity._

The Kent house was dark when Oliver slowly rolled his bike down the driveway, but there was a light on in the barn and Clark's dog Shelby ran to greet him from that direction, so he ignored the house and skirted the tractor to the left. Crickets serenaded him as he made his way past hay bales stacked eight feet high, but otherwise it was quiet, eerily quiet. A normal person hanging out in a barn at night might be playing music or talking on the phone—but apparently not Clark. Unless he was sleeping…

Up the stairs and into the loft to find Clark standing by the giant window, looking out of a telescope at the night sky. Oliver was sure Clark had heard him approach, but he didn't turn, he didn't even bother to raise his head.

"Hey," Oliver said, expecting some sort of surprised acknowledgement and not exactly thrilled to have Clark say instead—

"What are you doing here, Ollie?"

"You've been avoiding me, Clark. I need to talk to you."

Now Clark straightened and turned. Red t-shirt, jeans—typical Clark attire, but his stance was guarded and his expression much less than welcoming. "So you just show up here in the middle of the night?"

"I don't like being ignored by my friends, Clark."

"I wasn't ignoring you—"

"Right, you were just too busy baling hay. Tell it to someone who doesn't already know what you can _do."_

Clark turned away again. Oliver realized his voice had risen, like he was some sort of housewife berating her husband for working late and missing dinner. He shook his head, tried to control his sense of righteous indignation over the lack of attention paid to him by a twenty year-old. He needed to stick to the topic. It wasn't as if Clark Kent owed him anything other than common courtesy and an explanation of the things he couldn't remember.

Head bowed, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans—Clark looked the picture of tense dejection as he leaned against the wooden wall, looking out over fields of corn. Oliver walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I just want a few minutes of your time, Clark. Then I'll leave you alone." And although it killed him to say it, he added, "I promise."

Clark turned into his arms, eyes blazing. "I don't want you to leave me alone. _I wish I wanted you to leave me alone."_

Oliver was a surfer. The beach scene in Star City was a rich guy's dream, and he had taken full advantage of that in his youth. Upon occasion, he'd get knocked off his board by a particularly strong wave, one that crashed into him and upended his sense of equilibrium, casting him down into the undertow and threatening his life with the startling intensity of events. He felt just like that now, surprised, overwhelmed, invaded, with Clark wrapped around him, and kissing him, and advancing him across the small space with the aggressiveness of his embrace until he felt the loft level railing impact his back, and all he could do was hope that the railing would hold or that one of Clark's unrevealed super powers was the ability to fly—

+

What was he **_doing?_** It was hard to _think_ let alone reason with Oliver in his arms, kissing him back, kissing him like it was the only reason he had come to the Kent farm in the middle of the night. Clark felt a keen sense of relief, a release of tension at every action that mirrored his own measure for measure. Now Oliver's hands were in his hair; now he was fighting to wrest control of their embrace, pushing back against him and causing them to stumble into the middle of the floor and away from the railing.

It felt—impossibly _right,_ familiar, like he had been waiting his whole life for this one moment and had finally realized it was only an echo of some past moment. That everything happening had already happened. The feel of Oliver's lips against his own—familiar. The taste of his mouth—familiar. The way Oliver felt and sounded was all part of the fabric of his memory, like they had done this before— _and they had._

The stark realization, the recall of recent events pulled him out of his fugue state completely. This wasn't—this wasn't _right._

 _These weren't his feelings._

Clark pushed Oliver away, harder than he should have because Oliver stumbled into the sofa and looked over at him in shock. He couldn't face that look of appalled confusion. _Oh, **God.**_ He had kissed Oliver. He shouldn't have—

How was he going to explain?

"Clark?"

"I—" Clark backed away, glanced at the staircase, his only means of escape— _all he wanted was to escape from this_ —but that would be juvenile, ridiculous, so he turned towards the window instead. He took a deep breath to stop his racing heart. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"Don't apologize, Clark. I've been kissed before." Oliver lowered his voice. "Not like that exactly." Then he raised it again. "There's no problem here, but we do need to _talk_ about this…"

Oliver had moved closer to him carefully, treating him like a wild thing that might run at any sudden movement. Clark supposed he had been acting exactly like that, and figured he had better turn and face the consequences, stop being such a coward. With a deep breath, he did just that, and looked directly at Oliver for the first time all evening. His eyes were drawn to lips that were pink and slightly swollen, and he could feel that same spiraling tension that had consumed him for weeks attempt to make him do something…crazy. Something wild and outrageous.

This time, Oliver kissed him. _Frantically._ As if it had been all he could do to act calm and rational until that mask had finally cracked and fallen away. It wasn't until they both had to breathe that they pulled apart.

Oliver ran his hands through his hair, exhaled loudly, mumbled, "We **really** need to talk."

Talking was…complicated. Clark needed some time to think first, to figure out the best way to explain—everything.

"What's going on here, Clark?" Oliver stepped in close again. "I really need you to tell me what's happening, because I feel like I'm losing my mind. This isn't me. I swear I never—"

"Can we—do this tomorrow?" Clark interrupted. At Oliver's skeptical look, he moved away, took a few steps towards the window to escape the heady feeling of having Oliver so near. "I promise, I'll come by the watchtower tomorrow. I'll—explain everything—"

"You want me to leave—?"

Clark surged forward, grabbed Oliver by the arms. "I don't **want** you to leave, _but I need you to._ Please, just go. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay." Oliver backed away. "Okay. But don't flake, Clark. I'm trusting you…"

With that warning, Oliver turned and jogged down the steps. The quiet roar of his motorcycle was a discordant break in the silence. Clark listened as he maneuvered slowly out of the driveway; listened as he sped back to Metropolis. Clark listened as Oliver entered his apartment, as he showered and changed and sighed Clark's name as he lay in his bed, trying to fall asleep.

+

"Tonight?" Oliver said, tapping his fingers on his desk. "I'd love to, Lois, but I have a board meeting for one of the subsidiaries at seven…yeah, not much fun in that." He glanced at the clock again. "I'll make it up to you, though. How about Saturday? I've been wanting to go hiking—you up for that?" He chuckled at Lois' indignant response. "I'll never again question your athletic prowess. Listen, I have to go. Call you later?"

He pushed a button and set his phone down on the desk. Lying to his girlfriend left a sour taste in his mouth, but it was almost five o'clock and Clark had yet to appear with that promised explanation. He couldn't…imagine…going out with Lois without first talking to Clark. About what was going on. About what had happened…was happening. _Between them._

Waiting had never been Oliver's strong suit, so he contemplated his cell phone, then reached for it and scrolled through the quick dial list, settling on Clark's number and weighing his options. Finally, he snorted and slammed the phone down. He had been waiting all day. What was a few more hours? He couldn't believe the farmboy would blow him off entirely.

Fifteen minutes later, his assistant buzzed up to tell him that Clark Kent had arrived.

In the short time it took for Clark to ride up to the penthouse, Oliver felt the palms of his hands dampen. He wiped them against his jeans in disgust. It wasn't as if he were some teenager with his first crush—

The elevator door opened. Clark stepped into the apartment in a sky blue rugby and jeans, casual but not too far removed from stylish—which was unusual enough to cause Oliver to blink.

"Hey."

"Hey." Oliver circled the desk. Now he was standing right in front of Clark, within arms reach, and the pull—he hadn't imagined it. It took every ounce of his self control not to reach out, move closer—

Oliver cleared his throat. "Didn't think you'd make it."

"I said I would."

"It's five o'clock. When you said _tomorrow,"_ Oliver continued dryly, "somehow I thought you meant _tomorrow, first thing in the morning._ Or _tomorrow, around lunchtime—"_

"I thought you'd be busy," Clark interrupted defensively. "I didn't want to bother you—"

"That never stopped you before."

"Sue me for trying to be considerate this time, then," Clark groused, stepping forward but then quickly moving to the left, as if their close proximity had burned him. He made his way over to the weight bench and sat down, straddling the end.

It was all Oliver could do not to follow him. Instead, he forced himself back over to the desk to retrieve the television remote control. He couldn't quite keep his eyes off of Clark and took in the line of his posture, the way the dark cascade of his hair hid his face, with sidelong glances. Clark had his hands clasped in front of him, elbows on thighs, staring at the floor. It hardly escaped his notice that Clark now seemed to prefer to look anyplace but directly at him, and that… _wasn't the way it should be._ The sight made Oliver itch to sit down next to him, to, perhaps, pick up where they had left off last night…

 _This is like some weird compulsion,_ Oliver realized. With Clark in the room, it took an unreasonable amount of willpower to maintain control of his actions, as if some external force was influencing him from afar. Oliver didn't recognize himself like this. _The things he wanted to do—_

"I want you to see something," Oliver said, fumbling with the device in his hand like he was in high school. He queued the video feed to the screen on the wall. Then he played it for Clark.

Oliver positioned himself by the door to the balcony and watched Clark blanch when the scene became clear. There was less than ten minutes of relevant footage—the initial confrontation, Clark's timely intervention, the silent exchange between Clark and the WWF reject, the explosion, the inexplicable fight between himself and Clark, and the disappearance. Oliver turned the screen off at the end. Clark was again staring at the floor.

"How…?"

"That's Queen Industries satellite footage. Whenever I plan an operation or intend to stay in one city for an extended length of time, I task a satellite to provide surveillance, so I can use the footage for debrief or training. That—" Oliver pointed at the screen, "came directly from the surveillance archive. The only problem is _I have no memory of that happening."_

Twenty seconds of silence.

"Is there anything you think I should know, Clark?"

Clark's voice, when he answered, sounded out of breath.

"Do you—have video of what happened after that?"

"I wish I did. We disappeared entirely. Satellite coverage has the obvious limitations." Oliver studied Clark's profile, resisting the urge to close the distance between them. "Do you think we could get started on that explanation…?"

"I—" Clark glanced at him quickly. Then with a determined air, he sat up and turned his body so he could address Oliver directly. It was stunning—having the full force of Clark's blue eyes focused on him so intensely. Strange—how easy it was to forget in a few short weeks outside of his presence that Clark had a certain inimitable _something_ that made a person feel either buoyed up or broken down, respected or unworthy, recognized or disregarded. He'd make a great CEO, Oliver realized. People would work their hearts out for him.

"What do you know about me, Ollie?" Clark began with a sigh. "I mean—you know I can do certain things, yet you've never asked me how I do what I do."

"Just because I haven't asked doesn't mean I haven't thought about it." Oliver ran a hand through his hair. "You're from Smallville. Because of the meteor showers, there's a disproportionate number of people with enhanced abilities that originate from there." He paused. "You know I've been working on the 33.1 experiments, so obviously, I've wondered—"

"I'm not meteor-infected."

"Okay…?"

"I'm—" Clark stopped. Frowned. Oliver itched to reach out and smooth his face into its usual smile, but he leaned his shoulder into the wall, looked down at the floor, instead. When he regained his equilibrium, he knew what he had to say.

"Clark, you can trust me. You know my secrets. I would never betray yours. I hope I've convinced you by now that we're on the same side."

The lopsided half-smile on Clark's face told him he had said the right thing. Clark got to his feet, advanced in his direction.

"Either fidelity itself does not exist in this world, or nobody practices it in our time. For no one had learnt archery from me, without at the last making a target of me."

"An archery quote." Oliver couldn't help but smile. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Lex. 13th century— _The Manner of Kings."_ Clark shrugged. "He likes…quoting things."

"Megalomaniacs often do."

Clark stopped within arms distance, at his right shoulder so they could both look out of the glass doors onto the balcony and Metropolis beyond. The sky was painted red and orange and yellow with the fading sun. Clark lapsed into silence.

Then, quietly, "Lex wanted to know every secret. He _needed_ to know. I…wanted to trust him, in the beginning, when we were close, but something would always happen; he always had a hidden agenda—"

"I'm not Lex."

"I know, but I've had to hide my whole life, to make sure no one realized what I could do. It was the one thing—" Clark paused. "I always knew that if anyone found out…about me…I could end up in a facility like 33.1."

There was a note of regret in Clark's voice, a thread of sadness that pained him to hear. "Clark, you have my word. I would never do anything to hurt you. And you might find that having friends on your side who share the same mission makes it easier."

Now, Clark was facing him. In the light of a fading sun, his eyes were like blue flame, sparked with red. Oliver knew what was about to happen, wouldn't have stopped it if he could. Clark closed the last small space between them and kissed him. _Kissed him._ Like he was dying, starving, drowning; Like there was a way to meld two disparate forms into one through force of will and the hot press of bodies against a wall. The way he couldn't think of anything other than _Clark,_ the overwhelming inability to conform his current actions to reality, the pulse-pounding desire, the mind-altering need—it started to scare him. He tried to pull away. The more he tried, the more he realized he couldn't. Pull away. _He couldn't—_

Clark released him. _"Look at us._ I can't—afford trust." They were both breathing hard. "Being around me—it's dangerous, to my family, to my friends…."

"I don't understand. Just tell me—what is _this?_ What's going on?

"I…I have something I want to show you. Do you have time for a trip?"

"A trip?" Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Sure, but—"

Clark had his hand on the sliding glass door that opened onto the balcony. "Just come. I'll bring you back. It won't take long."

He shrugged, followed Clark out into the cool evening air. When Clark stepped close to his side and placed a hand around his waist, he shivered. "Don't panic," Clark said. "Close your eyes and hold on."

Then the world shifted, and the wind lashed his skin. His stomach clenched and dropped, and his grip on Clark tightened reflexively. But in minutes, it was over, and the world returned to normal, except when he opened his eyes he found that everything had turned to white, and the sun had risen again over a castle made of ice.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

"Where are we?" Oliver whispered, moving away from Clark's embrace and towards the structure of crystalline spires shooting reflective white light into a pale blue sky. _"What is that?"_ In his eagerness, he stepped into a deceptive drift of snow, sinking down to his ankle, and stumbled. Clark was there with a hand to his elbow, steadying him.

"It's too cold to stay out here. Come on."

Again, Oliver glanced around before allowing Clark to gently pull him in the desired direction. Snow and ice as far as the eye could see in every direction. They could easily be in Alaska, or Siberia or…Oliver took a better look at the sky, did a quick mental adjustment for the position of the sun and decided they were likely in the Arctic. The Arctic! _Amazing._

"Clark—"

"Wait."

There was no door into the structure, only an icy façade of crystal ascending hundreds of feet in the air, jagged, icy columns that rose up out of the ground at an angle and crossed high above their heads, forming strange, triangular shapes against the sky. For the life of him, Oliver couldn't figure out what they were going to _do,_ how they were supposed to get inside of this pyramid-like _thing,_ but then Clark stepped closer to a white wall that hummed as if it recognized him and reflected a florescent red light before slipping aside and providing an entrance.

Oliver was speechless.

"Follow me," Clark said, over a shoulder. "Watch your step."

 _Follow._ He could do that.

There was a cavernous inner space, and archways that seemed to lead deeper inside, but Clark led them to the precise middle of the first room where there was an apparatus of pale lights encased in ice, and two flat benches, white and thinly delicate. They seemed hardly sturdy enough to hold his weight—

"Sit," Clark said.

Raising an eyebrow, Oliver did so while Clark paced in front of him.

Clark took a deep breath, and began, "This place is—I'm not—from Earth." He glanced in Oliver's direction quickly. "I was born on a planet called Krypton…"

"Krypton." Oliver blinked. "A planet. You're—an _alien."_

+

"Yes."

Oliver grinned. "You're joking."

Clark frowned at him. "No, I'm serious. I knew you wouldn't believe me. That's why I brought you here."

"An…alien. That explains a lot. I always thought you were too good to be true—"

"I was raised here," Clark interrupted. He wasn't sure, but he didn't want Oliver to internalize the idea that his Kryptonian heritage was the reason for _anything._ "If I'm good or bad or anything at all, it's because of the way my mom and dad raised me, not because I was actually born on another planet."

"Right, but—"

"This is all part of my heritage," Clark tried again, motioning at their surroundings, "but it's not _me."_

Oliver was silent, studying him. "Okay," he said. "You're not really comfortable with this."

Actually, Clark supposed he had become more comfortable with the whole notion over the course of time, but his stomach still tied itself up in knots whenever he was forced to discuss the magnitude of his secret with anyone. He didn't want to _be_ "Clark the Alien" where his friends were concerned. He didn't want to be strange and different and responsible for so many of the worst things that had happened in his small area of the world over the last twenty years. He was grateful for the special things he could do—after all, his abilities had allowed him to help people, save lives—but he just wished his abilities hadn't come with so much crazy baggage.

"It's complicated," Clark said, and sat down next to Oliver.

"How is it that this place doesn't show up on the satellite coverage? You should have people, _governments,_ here trying to claim and dismantle—"

"You have to know it's here. Before you can see it, you have to know to look for it. It has something to do with the computers. They can…distort reality, create an illusion in a way, I think—"

"You think?"

"I still have a lot to learn about my heritage."

"Who knows about this place?"

"Chloe, my mom."

"And me." Clark nodded. "When—How did you get here? Why—What does this have to do with what happened?"

Clark took a deep breath and started from the beginning with the abridged version, hitting the salient points that he felt Oliver needed to know.

"So the meteor shower—"

"Pieces of my home planet."

"And the meteor infected—"

"The rocks are radioactive and mutate human genes with either prolonged or high dosage contact."

"And Lex—"

"Knows about the effects of the meteor rocks, obviously, but not about my connection to it."

"That's why—"

"33.1 is so important to me."

Clark could see all the pieces coming together for Oliver. He had gotten to his feet, and now he was the one pacing.

"Dark Thursday—"

"That's a long story…" And Clark proceeded to explain it all, with a growing sense of trepidation because _this_ was the heart of the reason he had brought Oliver here, the reason he needed to share his secrets. The reason he felt he _owed_ Oliver his secrets.

"A Phantom Zone. That's…amazing. And you were trapped there, and Lex was here but his body was taken over by Zod—that's why—"

"Yes."

"You escaped—"

"Yes," Clark said, looking down. He couldn't bear Oliver's scrutiny when he said this. "But I…opened a door, and criminals from the Phantom Zone escaped. They have super powers just like me, and some of them can take over the bodies of humans."

Oliver stopped pacing. "That's what happened…?"

Clark nodded. "The one thing all of the Zoners have in common is that they hate me—"

"Because of your father."

"Yes. He created the Phantom Zone. He banished them there. They want revenge."

"How—"

"The satellite footage that you gave me from Dark Thursday. Chloe was able to determine the number of Zoners that escaped by the impact craters they created when they fell to Earth. Either I hunt them down or they hunt me—"

Oliver stopped his pacing. "You lied to me. Why didn't you just _ask_ for my help—"

"Because it's dangerous, Ollie." Clark got to his feet, placed a hand on Oliver's arm. "I didn't want you involved in any of this. I didn't want anyone else hurt because of me."

Oliver took a small step forward so they were standing closer. "Why now? Obviously, Lex was involved in this but I take it you haven't brought him here. I hope you haven't told him any of this, even though he was the one possessed by Zod. So why trust me, Clark?"

"Because of this." A hand to the curve of a cheek, and a kiss that reached and started tentatively, but turned deep and long. Clark pulled away just enough to drop his face to Oliver's neck and allow himself to breathe. He needed this. It scared him to death, but he couldn't deny the pull—

A groan. _"Clark—"_

Reluctantly, Clark let him go. "Sit," he said. "I have to show you something."

Clark walked over to the crystal interface and activated the computer. A hologram of Jor-El appeared.

"That's—"

"My father."

"Whoa."

They listened as the hologram detailed the particulars of the Phantom Zone and the reasons why criminals were banished there.

"That's an interesting way of doing things," Oliver said when Clark stopped the display. "Neat and painless."

"I guess it worked for them," Clark agreed. "But once Krypton exploded, the people in the Zone were effectively trapped there—"

"Whether or not their sentence called for life imprisonment—there was no one left to let them out."

"Exactly. They're stuck in there, and they're angry."

"But some got out through the door."

"Yes. Most of them just want to kill me for revenge, because my father created the Phantom Zone and was also the Minister of Justice, the primary person responsible for prosecuting them for crimes."

"So that's what I ran into in Metropolis—"

"A Zoner had control of that guy, and when I attacked him and the truck exploded, he jumped from that body into yours. The memory loss is a by-product of the Zoner being in control of you. Lex doesn't remember anything he did as Zod either."

+

Oliver frowned. This was all sufficiently mind-blowing enough, but, obviously, there was more to this explanation. Clark was biting his lip and looking anywhere but at him. His hand was on Oliver's thigh, though, and Clark didn't even seem to realize it.

"What else, Clark? What does this have to do with _this?"_ He placed a hand over Clark's hand, and the electricity that passed from skin to skin, into his leg and straight to his groin, was tangible. Clark turned his head, stared down at their hands, then up into his eyes.

"I researched the record in the computer. The Zoner you encountered wasn't a Kryptonian. He was from a different world altogether. He and another of his race were convicted of murder and sentenced to the Phantom Zone. One of them got out when I opened the door. The other didn't…"

"I don't understand—"

"The Zoner took over your body, attacked me, basically what you saw on your satellite footage…"

Oliver was getting worried. Clark was stalling and the expression on his face was so conflicted, it called to mind all of the worst possible scenarios for the amount of time he couldn't recall. "And…?"

"And this particular race has psychic ability—mind control, telepathy, all of that. I couldn't— _fight."_

Oliver tightened his hand around Clark's. "What happened?"

"He brought me here, to the fortress. He needed one of my father's crystals to free the other. We fought, but it was as if I was trapped in my own head. There was nothing I could _do."_

"Clark, _what happened?"_

"He—"

"Did I hurt you, Clark? Did I—what did I do?"

Clark shook his head. "Not you. The Zoner. He was able to release the other from the Phantom Zone. It took over my body. They were more than simply friends, Ollie…"

"Just tell me—"

But it didn't seem as if Clark could get the words out. Instead, he stood up, and walked over to the control panel, and touched a crystal. An image formed, of the vista outside of the fortress. Three dimensional and seemingly as real as their current surroundings. Then himself and Clark appeared in the scene, and it was so obviously a continuation of the exchange he had captured in Metropolis. To finally know what had happened to him was a relief; relief that changed to appalled shock as his own actions unfolded.

"My God, Clark." His voice was a stunned whisper, his stomach clenched in knots. "I attacked you. I raped—"

"Not you." Clark fell to the bench next to him and ran a hand through his hair. "And I can't even call it _rape,_ or whatever. There was a moment that I didn't want anything that was happening, and the next moment there wasn't anything I wanted _more."_

 _"But Clark—"_

"This isn't why I brought you here—to show you this and to blame you for any of it. I've had awful things happen to me before, so many times in my life. That—" Clark motioned to the hologram that continued on with the scene in silent mockery, "seems like a dream to me. A dream that I'm…desperate to recapture. I can hardly stand to be around you—"

"What?"

Clark got to his feet and stopped the hologram, and Oliver was thankful for it because he didn't think he could take another minute watching what was happening in front of him.

"Something's wrong," Clark said. "And I don't know how to fix it." He leaned over the crystal control panel, hands tightening on the edges. "There's nothing that I can find to explain…"

"Explain what?"

"Why I can't stay away from you, and you can't stay away from me—"

Oliver realized Clark was exactly right, because he had moved from the bench to Clark's side without even realizing it. The hand that he reached out and placed on Clark's arm was the hand of a stranger.

"Are you saying that we're still possessed somehow?"

"No—I don't think so. One of the Kryptonians released from the Phantom Zone was my father's assistant, Raya. She was trapped there when Krypton exploded. With her help and one of the crystals, we were able to send both Zoners back."

"Where is she now?"

Clark looked away. His voice, when he spoke was flat. "She…died, freeing us from the Zoners."

"I'm sorry, Clark."

Clark turned to face him. His eyes were blue like the very center of a flame dying from a lack of oxygen. "I don't know why we're still feeling like this. I don't know what to do to stop it. All I know is that I—"

 _"Want you."_

Their voices echoed oddly.

+

It was late when they got back to the penthouse, arriving the same way they had left it—through the balcony doors and into the darkness of the living room. It felt to Oliver as if he had just returned to reality from out of fantasy, woken from a white dream to the more mundane greens and yellows of his usual life. Clark was standing in the middle of the room stiffly, as if he didn't know what to do or say, now that things had gotten so much more complicated. Oliver knew exactly how he felt.

"Clark—"

Clark turned towards him. "What—?" He seemed startled, eyes intense in the shadows of the room.

"What's the plan?"

"I don't have one, exactly. I'm going to keep looking for information. Maybe Chloe can help—"

"Lois—"

"I won't tell her anything specific," Clark assured him, turning away, but Oliver could see the sudden tension in his shoulders. "Meanwhile, I think we should just stay away from each other. It's easier from a distance—"

"I didn't mean—" Oliver reached out, touched Clark's arm, wanting him to turn. He didn't want Clark to just disappear again…

Then Clark was in his face, and his back was against the wall, and Oliver realized that something had crashed to the floor but he couldn't spare the attention to figure out what it was. All he could see was Clark, all he could feel was Clark, pressed against him, mouth close enough to kiss.

"You have to stop touching me, Ollie. I can't do anything if you don't stop—"

Speech became impossible. They were kissing, picking up right where they had left off before their trip to Clark's fortress of ice that had seemed somehow to mute this desperate need, turning it calm and pale and manageable. Now, it blazed again, and knowing that it really wasn't _them,_ that the desire existed but it wasn't their _fault,_ not something they wanted or looked for or pursued, made it easier, stifled the objections Oliver knew he should be making to the way they were fighting each other across the room, discarding clothes frantically, stumbling up the stairs and into the loft. He wasn't even embarrassed by the way Clark lifted him; simply taking the opportunity to tangle his feet around Clark's legs and trip him onto the bed.

It had been ages since Oliver had done this sort of thing with another guy, but there was no time to think about it now, or worry or wonder. His mind was filled with flashes of the hologram, the scene in the snow when he'd been with Clark—though it hadn't been _him_ and it hadn't been what _he_ wanted. But having seen it, he had to know what it was like to feel Clark in that way. _He needed to know._ He had never wanted such a thing before, but now it was all he wanted—the taste of skin, the way Clark pressed him to the bed, settled between his legs, making loud, desperate noises as he worked his way from mouth, to neck, to chest, and down.

Everything else—it simply passed in a pleasure-filled haze of red. There was no shame in it, no thought of any moment but _this_ moment. Just Clark as he urged him onto his stomach; just Clark as fingers entered him, and more, until they could move together heatedly, sending Oliver into the throes of the most explosive climax he had ever experienced in his twenty-seven years of life on Earth. Certainly, the feeling that shot through him and gripped his entire body, that made him so dizzy he had to close his eyes and bury his face in Clark's chest as he lost consciousness, wasn't anything earthly.

+

Oliver awoke to the feeling that something was wrong, out of place. There were sheets tangled around him. He felt sticky and used. The room was filled with moonlight, so it was easy to see the person sitting on the other edge of the bed as he sat up. Clark was dressed and obviously ready to go.

Then the full force of recollection came crashing down on him—what had he done? _With Clark?_ The twenty-year-old farmboy from Kansas by way of outer space. And Oliver had been so shamelessly _desperate;_ he hadn't even insisted they use a condom! It was just…beyond belief.

"Clark, I—"

"I'm sorry for this, Ollie," Clark said, voice low.

"There's no need to apologize, Clark. I mean, _really,_ no apologies necessary. I'm just…" Oliver took a deep breath. "You know I'm with Lois. This can't—"

Clark scoffed, and it was a particularly harsh sound because his back was turned. "Do you think I _want_ to come between you and Lois? I love _Lana._ She's the only person I've ever loved—" Clark shook his head. "I'll figure out a way to fix this. Until then, we stay away from each other."

In a red and blue blur, Clark was gone.

Oliver threw back the sheet and stepped out of bed, heading for the shower. He didn't bother to wonder at the tightness in his stomach, the panic that threatened to send him after Clark. The echo of the words _Lana_ and _Only_ and _Love_ haunting him mercilessly.


End file.
